Streetfilms: Car-Free Bedford Avenue

Emil Kozerawski is still working on the idea of making Williamsburg, Brooklyn’s "Main Street" into a car-free pedestrian boulevard. Now Car-Free Bedford Avenue has its own Streetfilms-style video on YouTube. Speaking of which, don’t forget to tag those YouTube videos "Streetsblog" to ensure that we get a hold of them.

I love the vision and ambition of this project. It is worth noting, however, that this is the same Bedford Avenue where the community has been waiting for two years for the city to replace one or two on-street car parking spaces with bike racks near the heavily-used L train subway stop. At least once a year the NYPD will come and saw off the locks of all the park-n-ride commuter bikes tied to street furniture around the subway station.

While we wait for a Car-Free Bedford to materialize, improving the bike parking situation around the Bedford Avenue L station would be a cheap, easy way for DOT to show off its new commitment to Livable Streets. There isn’t even any community resistance here. The local Community Board has approved on-street bike parking at Bedford. Everyone is ready to go. Until then…

One small concession on the on-street bike parking space, in case it faces strong opposition:

If there are elderly or disabled motorists who regularly depend on a parking spot near the L, then maybe the converted parking space should be a few spaces away from the L stop, not right next to it. Cyclists are able-bodied enough to walk a few yards.

mfs

If they need to park THAT close to the L, they are not walking down those steps to the subway, as it’s not an accessible station.

DOT has been dragging its feet on this bike stuff for years. I remember in the summer of 2004, they told me it was going to be installed within a year. The community is really all in favor– anything to get the bikes off of the subway railing and off the sidewalk, because it’s so narrow there.

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Trading Car Parking for Bike RacksA StreetFilm by Clarence EckersonRunning Time: 3 minutes 30 seconds In a historic first for New York City, the Department of Transportation has removed on-street car parking spaces in favor of bike racks. This revolutionary development took place near the Bedford Avenue subway station in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Streetsblog has been […]